Martin Henry On July 14, 1789, the commoners of Paris, rebelling against the oppression of royal power, stormed the Bastille, launching the�French Revolution. This Saturday marks the 218th anniversary. Shortly after the storming of the Bastille, feudalism was abolished on August 4, and on August 26, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was proclaimed. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, some 500,000 humans languished in slavery in the French colony of Saint-Domingue. The French Revolution helped to inspire the Haitian which started only three years later in 1791. After 13 years of complicated fighting, a black and free Haitian Republic was established on January 1, 1804. The Haitian Revolution had tremendous impact on the quest for freedom in the Caribbean and across the Americas. White slaveholding power everywhere feared it; black slaves were inspired by it. In […]